“It was just...it started as a carjacking. The two guys were out of their heads on something. It turned into something else when they realized me and Mia were there. My parents weren’t going to let us go. Mom reached for the money we’d been keeping in the glove box. They panicked, thinking she had a gun, too. Dad tried to cover her. It was over so fast.”
“Are you sure they’re dead?”
The stench of blood and smoke fills my senses, and the rumbling of pain starts at the back of my head, carrying forward like a rattling drum. I focus on the rain’s pattering so I don’t have to hear Mia’s screaming.
“God,” she said, “of course you are. I’m sorry. You can’t...you...” She’s blinking hard, trying to clear her throat until she gives up, and I see the first tears collecting on her lashes.
“Your folks?” I ask.
I didn’t like the Dahls. At all. Sammy was the best thing about them, and they never once recognized it. I don’t know how someone like her could survive in a house that’s just so...stiff. Stiff words, stiff hugs, stiff dinners. Mom felt so sorry for her, liked to tease out Sam’s devious, wicked streak with her own. Anything she lacked at home, we would have given her. We were always overflowing with the good stuff. My house in Bedford was loud and messy and so sweet, so bright the memories almost hurt to look at.
Sam shrugs. “Dad walked me to school. That was the last I saw or heard from them.”
I don’t know what to say to that that wouldn’t be horrible and offensive to the people who raised her. I can’t do anything, but lean against the crate. Sam does the same, and I try to imagine what it would be like if there wasn’t that barrier between us, if we’d lived our lives the way they were supposed to pan out. The missed things—games, dances, studying—those things just leave me hollow. But I know Sam is there. I know she is.
“Do you still see Greenwood?” Sam asks softly.
“Not like I used to,” I say. “There are other things I need to focus on. Remember.” I wish I still had the kind of heart to come up with the stories I used to. They were so pure and simple. And because we were making the rules, I always got to be the hero.
But there’s no room left for play or pretend in our lives. Even these minutes we’ve had are being stolen for reality. I need my shell, but I can’t lose my focus on the future because I’m letting myself get lost in the sweet glow of the past.
“I think about them all the time,” Sam said. “There was this one—Mia was the sorceress and she took over the fort and held you captive. I can’t remember why she was pelting me with her stuffed animals, though.”
I have to smile. Mia had a flair for the dramatic. She was happiest as a sorceress, an evil queen, or monster—and even happier if Mom let her raid her makeup to complete the look. “She could control the animals of the forest, remember? They were defending her.” Including her stuffed Tiger, Ty-Ty, because, of course, why couldn’t there be large predator cats in Greenwood?
“And she’d turned you into a beast, too! How could I forget?” Sam’s laugh is so faint I think I’ve imagined it. “Her weakness was water. I broke your Super Soaker.”
“But then you realized you could sing her to sleep,” I say. “Sammy saved the day again. How did that one go? I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart...”
“And I’m so happy, so very happy...” Her voice drifts off as she swallows hard. “I missed you. Is this even real? I can’t...Is this really happening?”
“I’m gonna bet I missed you more,” I say with a heat that has nothing to do with what I am, but who I am, who I want to be. “It feels the same.” You never left me.
Sam sits back, her lips parting, but if she means to say something, I’ll never know. The lights overhead suddenly snap on and I rocket to my feet, straightening out. The drug-like daze rips away from my mind and I slam back into reality. Sam scrambles back against the metal bottom of the crate. In the second before she disappears from my line of sight, I see the desperation on her face, and I’m cut in half by the kind of pain that’s worse than any baton, any shock, any blade. My ear is buzzing with updates, the Control Tower coming through with a firm “Power at full capacity, return to schedule.”
I force myself to walk toward the door, back toward the wall of crates, then toward the door again, trying to play off my indecision as pacing. My mind is looping. Olsen said to leave when notified that surveillance was operational—technically I haven’t been notified of that, only that the power is on. That’s an excuse they’ll buy, I think, that I took her words literally. They think our heads are vacant, waiting for them to pour in whatever thoughts or orders they want us to have. I can play dumb forever if it means not having to leave Sam alone. Shit.
This is going to be a problem—I’m not going to be able to concentrate on what I came here to do, on playing the part of perfect toy soldier. I’m not going to be able to think of anything but Sammy.
She’s humming again, picking up that same song about joy and happiness, and it stops me in my tracks. It settles my mind.
The door swings open behind me, letting in a spray of rain on a strong gust of wind. I set my legs apart in a strong stance, like I could be the wall that keeps it from reaching her. I turn my head around, fumbling for some kind of excuse to give to Olsen for why I’m still here.